


Meet Cute

by electricchicken



Series: The Radio Abel Roadshow [1]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricchicken/pseuds/electricchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Isn't a cricket bat a bit obvious for you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Cute

_Outskirts of London, 62 days after outbreak_

“A cricket bat, really?” the man says, as Jack attempts to wipe the brains off W.G. with a couple pages of an old Daily Mail , advertising pictures of the latest  _Big Brother_ cast mates attempting to eat each others’ faces in the house hot tub. Literally.   

“Really and truly.”

“That’s a bit,” the man gives the zombie on the ground in front of him one more good chop, then steals a few papers from the bin for his axe. (The blade’s chipped, Jack can tell from here. Hitting it into the dumpster must have been more than the thing could take.) “A bit obvious for you, isn’t it?”

“You’re welcome,” Jack says, “I’m really glad you enjoyed the way W.G. here took the heads off half that troupe of undead Girl Guides on your behalf. Please, don’t feel the need to grovel.”

The man grins at him, crumpling the bloody newsprint and tossing it over his shoulder. “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate a classic tribute. I probably watched  _Shaun of the—_ ”

“Don’t say it,” Jack groans, letting his own papers fall. The streets of London are dirty enough these days that littering doesn’t seem half the concern it used to.

“Sore spot?”

“Let’s just say I get called ‘Simon’ a lot more than I’d like,” he shrugs, and the man laughs. Not a chuckle, not a strained grin. One of those real belly laughs Jack hasn’t heard in ages.

“I promise there’s no ginger bias here, alright?” He sticks a hand out, his grip drier than Jack would’ve expected, given how long he’s been swinging that axe. “Quite the opposite even. I’m Eugene.”

“Jack.”

“Which way you headed?”

“North,” no other way to head these days, if the transmissions he’s been picking up out of Brighton and the Westminster compound are anything to go by. Nothing to do but head up the country and hope the fellows up in Scotland haven’t messed it up as badly as the English authorities.

“Me too,” says Eugene. They’re still shaking hands, and he seems to realize it just then, letting go with a slight cough — the ‘sorry, that was odd’ kind, not the zomb kind, and there’s another thing Jack didn’t know anyone was still doing.

“No one but you?” It’s not uncommon, but in the weeks Jack’s been working his way out of London it’s been falling off in popularity. But then, travelling in general appears to be on the decline. Most of the survivors left are hunkering down in packs as soon as they find somewhere well stocked enough to hold. There’s not many left that are mobile. The non-shambling, non-moaning kind of mobile, anyway.

“Not these days,” Eugene says, but not in the flat way Jack’s come to expect that means dead family and children and God knows what else. “My old group’s living out of a Tesco in the suburbs now. Me, I’d like to get a little further afield.”

“Yeah,” and Jack can understand that. There hasn’t been a count, official or not, of how many zombies are roaming the London area since the news stations went dark, but the last number he’d heard was somewhere in the millions. The underground system is supposed to be the stuff of nightmares — and that’s coming from people who’ve already survived the worst biological disaster in human history.

“You?”

“Had some family in the midlands, but,” he shrugs. There’s a faint groaning in the air, the next wave is probably three or four blocks away. Time to move. “You found a shelter for the night yet?”

“Pub?” Eugene says, and Jack glares at him.

“Seriously, if you’re going to make movie references all the way to Scotland—”

“So that was an invitation to share your bunker just now, was it?”

He doesn’t blush, but it’s a near thing. Been too long since he’s done this, even before the outbreak. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“Right, right.” They make it about two blocks in silence before Eugene pokes a spot of dried blood on his shoulder and says, “you know, you’ve got red on you.”


End file.
